An American entrepreneur named Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for an $8 billion fraud linked to the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange and hedge fund. A New York court convicted 31-year-old Bankman-Fried in November 2023 on 7 charges, including fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.
Breaking news: Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in prison over his role in the collapse of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange https://t.co/qMae22Ij9k pic.twitter.com/Ou4HIF6sEg
— Financial Times (@FT) March 28, 2024
The court accepted the prosecution’s demand and sentenced him to 25 years, while earlier he had the possibility of up to 110 years in prison. At the same time, the defense had demanded a sentence of 5-6 years. After his conviction, Bankman-Fried admitted his mistakes and said that he had made wrong decisions.
There was a time when Bankman-Fried was considered the king in the crypto industry. But now he is seen as a convicted fraudster. The investigation revealed that he had transferred the money of the customers of his crypto exchange FTX to the private investment company Alameda Research. This affected millions of customers and they lost their hard-earned money.
The court described the matter as extremely serious and called it the biggest incident that had happened in the industry. After this punishment of Bankman-Fried, a new message has been sent in the crypto world that any kind of irregularities will now be monitored.
